Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Cafe Lemon is coming to an end
It has been over nine years since Cafe Lemon opened in 2006, which was also exactly 100 years after the same premises were established as a Lipton Tea House in 1906!
We pride ourselves in having been the first ones to bring a modern Cafe culture in Harringay and we still endeavour to provide good service and high quality food to our customers. Only in the last two months we added organic, fair-trade and free range products to our menu and a couple of weeks ago we introduced discounts for students.
Unfortunately, however, high rent, forbidding business rates and ongoing daily costs are forcing us us to consider selling to very eager buyers from the kebab restaurant business, which one of them is already in Kebab business in Stoke Newington.
While often being busy at weekends, the lack of offices in the area deprive us of the regular customer basis of weekday, lunch-break customers. Add to that Harringey’s £3 per hour parking charges, plus the more-than-occasional rainy day and our income just isn’t enough to support us into the future.
Sadly, with my business partner we came to the conclusion to keep Cafe Lemon going for at most another 5 months. During this time we will continue to do our best to improve food quality and service. If, however, by around April 2016, we will still be struggling to pay our bills, the Cafe will have to be sold and turned into yet another kebab house.
Please help us to stay alive and remain part of the Green Lanes vibrant catering community!
Tags for Forum Posts: cafe lemon
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Lipton tea house in 1906.jpg, 380 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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There has been a lot of change along GL Harringay over the last 3-4 years (if we don't include the Salisbury Tavern re-furb 11 years ago!). The current wave of change started with Bingols smartening itself up, changing it's name in the process to Flame. They were located diagonally opp to the Salisbury. They also put their prices up which turned out to be a mistake as they ended up closing down. They couldn't match the great value of the newly expanded Selale (which followed the Bingols to Flame re-furb).
The Bingols to Flame experiment did however trigger a huge change along Green Lanes with other restaurants not just copying the idea of a re-furb but going one better, expanding into other premises. At first however they didn't put their prices up. They got the customers into their expanded restaurants, waited a year or two, then started to raise their prices. They have kept their good service however & legendary good value with all the extras (bread, salad, dips, tea, baklava) at no extra cost to chosen starters/mains dishes.
And of course we now have other businesses other than kebab type restaurants/cafes that have opened in the last 2 years. With the recent new bar openings even the Salisbury realised they needed to start offering a wider range of beers. For years they served only 1 lager on tap (because there was no competition)!
Cem, asking locals what they would like is a good move. Using produce from Baldwins is also a good idea. HLS & Blend do similar things. Good luck with making the right changes.
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Permalink Reply by gavin jackson on
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Ahh, the memories...Being invited into Café Lemon at 3am one Saturday night circa 2006, 50 or so Colombians partying and dancing to Latin music. Then the young woman asked me to' look after' £100 of her money. As I left, she told me never to give my passport to a Colombian. So very strange...
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Permalink Reply by Cem Kaplan ( Cafe Lemon ) on
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It was't Cafe Lemon, we took over this place October 2006. Previous owner was an Ecuadorian and the place was called cafe & bar Latino, yes there were having a weekend parties. But it wasn't us.
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do you know i never realized you weren't the same as the "cafe and bar" before you, just thought you had stepped up as the place next to you then had, but it closed down also in 2006
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The cafe/bar that was there before features a lot in this film The Lives of the Saints
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Permalink Reply by Lisa Price on
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Sad to hear this! I hope you don't have to sell up, especially to ANOTHER turkish kebab shop.... pretty sure there are enough of those around! Good Luck
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